Dinotasia

This is the main problem I have with this movie: It is not what it says it is. This is not a documentary, this is an anthology film based on black comedy and taking place millions of years ago. To be honest with you,it is a good comedy, but I cannot appreciate it because of how far it is of what it pretends to be.

Overall, it is a great time with a lot of fun moments. Yes, CGI is quite bad, but you get used to it pretty fast and the characters have much more development that in a lot of movies even though they cannot talk and the narration is almost nonexistent. Unfortunately, the movie, as a whole, is brought down by its lack of honesty with the audience.

This is an odd little movie. Although the animation and layout of the film might make you think that this is going to be a straight-up documentary like the BBC's "Walking With..." series, "Dinotasia" is more like a series of vignettes surrounding the experiences of a few individual dinosaurs (a pterosaur learning to fly, a tyrannosaurus couple defending their territory, etc.). Although Werner Herzog is cast as the narrator, he barely speaks at all, though he usually introduces each vignette with a few short lines, but these are more related to the theme of the narrative rather than scientific facts.

Although it comes off a bit cartoonish at times and might turn off people who came in expecting a true documentary, "Dinotasia" is quite an enjoyable viewing experience. At the very least, it's the world's first and only black comedy that can boast photo-realistic animated dinosaurs!

They bill this movie as being based on the most up to date paleontology but it is sorely lacking in information. Just a bunch of contrived scenes with humanized and unidentified dinosaurs but those are lacking even for what they are. A show like Walking with Dinosaurs has the elements of accurate info with fun to watch cgi. Or if you like realistic dinosaurs and a made up story, watch Disney's Dinosaurs (2000). To be fair I only watched half of the movie because it was so awful. Save some time and skip this one. There are some good Dino documentaries out there like Dinosaur Planet, When Dinosaurs Roamed North America, Clash of the Dinosaurs, and of course all of the iterations of Walking with Dinosaurs.

In the style of Walking With Dinosaurs, et al, Dinotasia presents a credible CGI depicted speculation of how dinosaur habitation on earth might have played out. Having some experience in the subject, I delighted in the sound paleontology and the accurate prehistory depicted. Some license was taken to infuse a little anthropomorphic appeal into the tale and, consequently, it was like I had a front row seat on a beautifully animated diorama of the age. Starting from the late Permian, it spans the Triassic and Jurassic and on through the early & late Cretaceous periods. Vignettes though they were, I was transfixed by the mini-stories of various dinosaur characters, followed as they struggled to hunt, reproduce, adapt and survive. I found myself even cheering-on several protagonist Tyrannosaurus Rexes, heroes until the end of the late Cretaceous at 65 Ma.

Was it entertainment? Sure. I always have liked Werner Herzog, who narrated the film, though sparsely. Most of it required no narrative but his thick German accent was not distracting to my accustomed ear when it emerged from the soundtrack music...which was terrific too. I recommend it wholeheartedly for pretty much any age group.

For people who have given poor reviews on this wonderful set of stories "not being a documentary," watch Discovery Channel's "Dinosaur Revolution" (since that is what Dinotasia is adapted from). From Wikipedia: "In 2012, a feature film called Dinotasia was released into theatres, incorporating and expanding upon the footage seen in Dinosaur Revolution. It was designed to be closer to what Dinosaur Revolution was originally conceived as. It is narrated by Werner Herzog."

The CG aspects of this do show the age of the technology of the time, but nevertheless, this is a great experience if you just let yourself get lost in the stories. I don't think I have seen a better attempt at a film trying to recreate the dinosaur past using forensic evidence from fossils and their locations.